“The Sting of the Mosquito Fleets”

By Joan Wenner · Originally published August 2018 · p. 31

This is not meant to be a technical article on the sometimes overlooked contributions of a virtual class of quick, shallowdraft “Mosquito Fleets” utilized by both sides during the Civil War, but rather certain examples of their use in naval coastline and port strategies to gain an advantage over the opponent. When Fort Sumter’s flag descended and resulting Union expeditions were launched to secure U.S. construction and port facilities including the Norfolk navy-yard and related property, the U.S. government was said to have 90 warships. More than half were sailing vessels but some 40 steam-driven craft were also moored at various navy-yard docks. A significant number of the vessels were out of commission, many more needed repair, and still others were scattered on foreign stations. When Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the 3,000 miles of the Southern coast, the U.S. Navy reportedly had only eight ships in commission in home waters. Craft of every conceivable variety were bought and refitted. Practically anything that floated and could carry a gun was hastily refitted, armed and pressed into service for this so-called “soap-box navy.” The included small freighters, and large side-wheelers, harbor tugs, along with others, such as shallow draft ferryboats useful for penetrating the narrow, twisting rivers and sounds of coastal Georgia and the Carolinas James Eads, the wealthy St. Louis salvager and subsequent bridge designer, took armored gunboat plans to Washington and returned to build the vessels at Cairo, Ill.. Navy commander John Rodgers traveled to Cincinnati, purchased three river steamers that he cut down and made into warships by sheathing them in 5 inches of oak. Both sides utilized rams; the Confederate’s, the ram Arkansas, ran through Gideon Welles’ Union’s fleet above Vicksburg, while the Unions speedy Ellet rams ran that city’s defending shore batteries. Joining the assembled sailing sloops (corvettes), auxiliary cruisers, steam frigates, subs, torpedo boats and, eventually, the ironclads, were the tinclad “Mosquito

Fleets;” so-called as they could in effect only ‘sting’ an adversary. The Confederacy quite miraculously created a fleet of vessels good enough to challenge the Federal navy, and all things considered say historians, the Confederate Navy Department acquitted itself very well. At its helm as Secretary of the Navy and architect of the fledgling armada was Florida’s Stephen Mallory. Mallory favored large, expensive ironclads, but Matthew Maury believed in the “Mosquito fleet strategy” using small, quick gunboats “to swarm like mosquitos around their large and slower opponents.” A concerned Confederate Congress appropriated funds for a hundred gunboats for use in the strategically important rivers and sounds of Virginia and the Carolinas, but only six were ready to reinforce North Carolina troops defending Hatteras Inlet when a joint army-navy Union force swooped down on the Inlet in August 1861 and captured its guardians, Forts Clark and Hatteras. At Hatteras Inlet, the tiny ‘mosquitos’ were easily swatted away, being forced to retreat north to Roanoke Island waters, with the new objective of forestalling movement of Federal forces northward. The entire Pamlico Sound north to Roanoke Island was now open to Union activity, “and for the Confederates the great highway linking coastal shipping to the rivers of interior North Carolina was beginning to close.” An interesting naval story during those first uncertain months of the war is the capture of the U.S. transport Fanny by three boats of the CSA’s North Carolina Mosquito Fleet near Loggerhead Inlet on Oct. 1, 1861. Fanny was laden with equipment for Union soldiers having an estimated value of $150,000. While not “a titanic battle between great warships,” noted author Bennet R. Moss, it was the “first capture of a Union warship by Confederate arms anywhere in the Civil War. Moss relates that after Ambrose Wright, a Confederate infantry colonel, spotted the Fanny, he determined to capture her and if possible learn the intentions of the enemy. Three craft of the Mosquito Fleet, including the tug boat Junaluska under Commodore W.F. Lynch, former U.S. Navy Captain, the Raleigh, and the Curlew, descended upon the Fanny with guns blazing and, after a half-hour chase and about two dozen shots, one shall landed on the deck and caused captain and crew to abandon ship in their small boat. U.S. Army Brigadier General Joseph Mansfield provided official explanation to his superiors. To summarize, the steamer Fanny had been chartered as a tender supporting Union forces at Hatteras Inlet. Fanny left the inlet at dawn with ammunition, clothing, and supplies, plus twenty-three more soldiers, and a Sawyer rifled gun for an infantry regiment stationed 40 miles northward at a locality called Chicamacomico, or Loggerhead Inlet. Upon meeting the U.S. steamer Putnam five miles from her destination. Fanny was escorted to an anchorage some three miles off the landing. The Putnam then departed for Fort Hatteras. Just prior to meeting the Fanny, the Putnam’s crew had seen a “rebel steamer westward, and gave as reason for returning that she was short of coal. Not long after Putnam departed, “Three steamers approached from the westward, and at a long range commenced an attack. No shots struck the Fanny but “then the cable was slipped” and she was run aground. Her crew abandoned ship while the officer in charge hoisted a white flag. “Some ammunition was thrown overboard but the guns were not thrown overboard nor the boat sunk, as was recommended by the mate and engineer.” The Confederate official report of the capture basically noted the thirty-five minute engagement, “the crew of the Curlew working their gun beautifully,” the ship surrendered and the ‘Mosquitos’ took 47 men and two officers prisoner. The report also noted that intelligence had been received just a day earlier that the Yankees were landing men at the location so time was of the essence to get the ‘Mosquitos’ in position. After interrogation, the captives reported a large Federal force at Hatteras. The narrative ended with, “Look out for something stirring in a few days.” That comment referred to attacking the Union regiment in what became known as “The Chicamacomico Races.” The Burnside Expedition would not arrive at Hatteras for a few months when a flotilla of nineteen naval vessels and 46 army transports carrying over 12,000 troops achieved its objective of capturing Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862. The Union fleet immediately pursued the smaller and weaker “Mosquito Fleet” across Albemarle Sound and into the Pasquotank River. Two days later, the little flotilla was destroyed in the battle of Elizabeth City. The ‘Mosquitos’ while badly battered had however harried Union operations for some six months. In Port Royal Sound in South Carolina, another Mosquito Fleet, Josiah Tattnall’s Savannah Squadron, darted from its anchorage in a creek Hilton Head Island to engage a Union force.

Rebel Tug-boats.”

After intelligence reports marked Fort Walker as the Union’s target, Tattnall sallied in a futile attempt to force Federal ships aground on shoals where they could be pounded by Confederate batteries. What ‘mosquitos’ survived returned to Savannah and Charleston as the Federal juggernaut continued. The Union’s victories weren’t pressed very hard. According to naval experts, the Confederate army high command lost interest in the “strategic uses of sea power,” discrediting the Mosquitos Fleet’s effectiveness, though by utilizing its other vessels, they were able to “stop any further incursions along the Southern coastline” for a time. Joan Wenner, J.D. has contributed for many years to the Civil War News and The Artilleryman among other history publications and has a law degree. Comments are welcomed at joan_writer@ yahoo.com.